


What Happened to Jack Morrison?

by Akiko_Natsuko



Series: Reaper76 [75]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Blood and Torture, Blood and Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing in Action, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Twitter thread fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22666738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akiko_Natsuko/pseuds/Akiko_Natsuko
Summary: When Jack disappeared during a scouting mission, the rest of the Strike Team had feared the worst. Loss wasn’t a new experience for them, because, for all their skills and strengths, war was war, and even they couldn’t protect everyone. But this was Jack. The light to Gabriel’s shadow. Their hope. Their strength.They’d searched. Turning the city upside down, brutal as they took down the Omnic forces in their way, but there was nothing – no body, no sign of a fight. It was as though he had never been there.As it would turn out, finding him wasn't the hardest part.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: Reaper76 [75]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1188655
Comments: 2
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that if you want to talk to me about my fics and writing, or anime/shows/games in general then you can now find me on discord [The Unholy Trinity](https://discord.gg/jdpcfy6XTB).

When Jack disappeared during a scouting mission, the rest of the Strike Team had feared the worst.

Loss wasn’t a new experience for them, because, for all their skills and strengths, war was war, and even they couldn’t protect everyone. But this was Jack. The light to Gabriel’s shadow. Their hope. Their strength.

They’d searched. Turning the city upside down, brutal as they took down the Omnic forces in their way, but there was nothing – no body, no sign of a fight. It was as though he had never been there.

For a time, there were even whispers outside their team that he had deserted. That he had abandoned them, and the world. Coward, people called him. Traitor.

The Strike Team were quick to silence those whispers if they heard them, and Gabriel was hauled up by the brass on more than one occasion for his ‘methods’, not that it stopped him. Ana was more subtle, but even more ruthless – and when Gabriel heard rumours of people losing their positions or asking for transfers because of it, he had just smiled – a tight, hard expression that didn’t reach his eyes.

Still, they hunted. They did their duty because Jack would want them to, but they didn’t stop searching or hoping.

Nothing.

It was crushing.

They all changed. Reinhardt didn’t laugh so much, and he spent more time training, feeling as though he had failed to shield Jack from whatever had happened even though he hadn’t been there at the time. Torbjörn was quieter and spent more time talking to his family. Ana, who’d always possessed a wild streak, kept tightly reined most of the time, almost came to match Gabriel and Jack for recklessness, refusing to lose anyone else. While Liao was always at work, scanning security footage and intelligence for any hint of their missing member.

Gabriel was the worst.

They had always called him the shadow to Jack’s sun, even though he was their leader because he was death when he was in the field. He fought to kill. Took the burden of the lives he took and lost, and held it deep. Jack had been his shield, his light, the one that stopped him from falling too far, and that safety net was gone.

Gabriel killed. Omnics, and the humans that had chosen to side with them. He wasn’t merciless, but there was a ruthlessness that was no longer constrained, a darkness that made anyone not in their team uneasy. He didn’t smile anymore, not really, eyes always dark and focused. Dying a little more inside with each day that passed.

The Crisis progressed, and they began to make progress. Long days, and weeks, spent fighting and bleeding for people who only saw their successes, raising them on pillars as ‘heroes’, not understanding how they broke a little more as time crept by and Jack seemed to fade from most people’s memories.

At that point they would have even welcomed the worst news, just to have that closure. To have a target for their revenge and anger. Anything other than this not knowing that was eating them up from the inside.

They found Jack a month later.

****

For once they hadn’t been looking. Well not actively at least.

Instead, it had been their biggest offensive for some time. Against orders and working on the bare minimum of intelligence they had pushed into a small town that had been entirely overrun by Omnics early in the Crisis. If any humans had been left behind during the evacuation, they were long dead, the streets a brutal tribute to what had happened here.

It wasn’t a strategic location. There was no population to protect. This was the strike team, saying that enough was enough and striking back, turning their frustration and fear over Jack into action. Trying to buy some space from the scrutiny and expectations that were hampering their efforts to find him.

A place for them to let their darkness out to play without fear of reprisal.

The assault was brutal, and for once, they had stolen a march on the Omnics, dropping into their midst before they even knew they were being attacked. Reinhardt scattering them, as the others surged in to fill the space, he’d created for them.

Here Gabriel shone almost as brightly as Jack had, a vicious grin on his face, as he wove through the Omnics. Death personified, as he blasted through optics and chassis’ with ease, his hand shooting out when he ran out of ammo, and tearing through the wiring of the Omnic looming over him. Reinhardt was shielding Liao and Torbjörn, allowing the latter’s turrets to get to work; waiting for any unlucky Omnic to venture into the range of his hammer. Ana was always on the move around the periphery of the battle, healing, sniping until she wound up cornered. Gabriel was already moving towards her when Ana sprang, seizing the Omnic’s arm, and vaulting up to come down on its head, a quick bash with the butt of her gun, revealing the delicate wiring at the back of its neck which she ripped out with hesitation.

There was a pause, the two of them glancing at one another. Then Gabriel whistled, and turned to blast an Omnic point-blank, as Ana fell back just in time to throw a biotic-grenade at the rest of their team.

*

The explosion when it came caught them all by surprise. Not least because it took out two dozen of the smaller Omnics at the same time as it washed over them. Reinhardt, swinging his shield up to cover Liao and Torbjörn who had been closest to him, was forced back several steps, glass raining down on them as the remaining windows shattered outwards. While Gabriel had dived on Ana, bodily hauling her off the street and into what had once been a corner shop, flames and smoke on their tail.

They had a split second to confirm that the other was unharmed, before there was an ominous rumble above them, as the building that had been damaged when the town had first been taken shook before the front collapsed in on itself. This time it as Ana who yanked Gabriel back, further into the building as rubble rained down on them.

They found refuge in a storeroom amongst ransacked shelves, with the foul-smell of rotting food flooding their nose. It seemed to take forever for the rumbling to end, the quiet that followed, broken by the settling of rubble, dust forcing them to cover their eyes and mouths as they huddled together.

It was only when the only sound was the last shifting of rubble, that Gabriel unfolded himself from the protective huddle, cursing under his breath as he looked out into what had been the front shop, but was now a tangled maze of beams and debris. Effectively sealing them in, unless they wanted to test just how much of the building was waiting to topple on them.

“The others will get us out,” Ana’s voice seemed too loud in the quiet, and he would have called the faith in her voice foolish if it had been anyone else. With Ana, he couldn’t argue, knowing that she would have weighed the situation from all sides. He also knew their team. None of them was willing to lose anyone else, if only because they didn’t want to be the one to tell Jack when he was found. So, he didn’t argue. But he did pace, knowing that this was only got to add to the backlash they were going to face for this mission. He didn’t care what they did to him, at this point, he fought for his team and Jack and nothing else, and Jack was gone. But, they could still take his team away, and his jaw clenched. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this.” He knew that he wasn’t much of a leader, not anymore, he was too angry and too focused on finding Jack, but he didn’t want to lose them.

“We all knew…” Ana started in the tone that promised a lecture, only to trail off, her head tilted to the side and Gabriel immediately tensed, reaching for his gun.

“Ana?”

She pressed a finger to her lips, and Gabriel listened. At first, all he heard was their own ragged breathing, and the sound of dust and rubble still settling into place. Further afield he could hear what he hoped was the others digging them out, but suspected that it was more likely to be fighting, itching to be out there with them.

And then…

A quiet groan. A sharp nod confirmed that he heard it too, and they rose silently to their feet, spreading out in a familiar pattern to canvas the room. It was Gabriel that found the door, immediately noticing that the hinges and lock were rust-covered, but recently disturbed. A quick flurry of signs, saw Ana moving to flank him, sleep dart held at the ready as he reached out and yanked the door open, both gagging at the smell that drifted up from the short, stairwell that lead into a cellar of some kind.

It was rot, and filth and smelled as though something or several things had crawled down here to die. Gabriel reached for one of the flare sticks he kept in his belt, snapping it and tossing it ahead of them, bathing the room in crimson as he moved down the steps with Ana pressing close.

It didn’t take long to spot the root of the smell, and Gabriel closed his eyes while Ana murmured a prayer as they skirted the bodies leaning on the wall beside the entrance. Poor souls who had probably taken shelter when the Omnics had first attacked, and been injured in the process, Gabriel easily picking out the bullet wounds that had made sure they hadn’t had a chance to escape.

“Gabriel.” He hadn’t heard Ana sound like that since Jack had first gone missing, anguish bleeding through and he tore his eyes away from the bodies and turned, a roaring sound building in his ears – not loud enough to drown out the pained groan – as his eyes landed on another body. This was one new and moving. Too-pale features dyed crimson, and not just from the light of the flare, as the man was bloodied and bruised, looking as though he had been caught in the devastation upstairs rather than left down here. It wasn’t enough to mask the familiar features, thinner than they remembered, scarred and swollen from the damage that had been inflicted.

“Jack…”

He wasn’t sure which of them had whispered it. Hope and fear warring for control. And it was Ana who moved first, stepping forward to go to Jack and Gabriel erupted into motion, throwing out an arm to stop her.

“Don’t!”

“Why?” Ana asked, startled by the fact that he hadn’t already rushed past her to get to Jack. Glancing at him, she could see the conflict in his expression.

The longing, warring with caution and a rising anger as his eyes darted around the room. “He wasn’t here before.”

“But…” Ana cut herself off, understanding dawning as she remembered the recently disturbed door. The fact that Jack was still alive in this hellhole, and with comprehension came fury. “Someone has been watching us?”

“They must’ve moved him the moment they knew what we intended to do,” Gabriel sounded calm, but she knew him well enough to know that he was anything but. “But why now…?” The last bit was said more to himself, and then he sighed and stepped forward, and this time Ana was the one to try and stop him. If it was a trap, there was nothing that she could do to help them down here. Gabriel side-stepped her. “If anything happens, get Jack out of here.”

Jack, not Gabriel and not herself. Ana’s eyes tracked to Jack again, taking in the restraints that she had been trying not to notice earlier, arms twisted painfully behind his back. The injuries, that had her jaw clenching, and she nodded.

She would get Jack out of there.

The world seemed to hold its breath as Gabriel stepped forward. Jack wasn't fully conscious, and he didn’t seem to be aware of them as he shifted against the restraints, soft, pained noise bubbling up, each one a blow to Gabriel’s heart.

He scanned the ground, walls and ceiling, searching for any sign of a trap. His mind was rife with questions. Why now? Why here? The explosion making a lot more sense now – it hadn’t been Omnics – it had been whoever wanted them to find Jack, and his expression tightened. How long had they been watching? How much had they seen of the team falling apart?

How much did Jack know?

Unable to see anything that could be linked to a trap, Gabriel took a final step forward and fell to his knees beside Jack. _Jack. Gods, it was Jack._ And when nothing happened, he reached out, startled to realise that he was trembling, he just wasn’t sure if it was fear or anticipation.

Jack’s body was cool to the touch, but it was solid and real, and Gabriel released a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. Moving with more confidence, as he carefully, gently eased Jack over onto his back, trying to get a better look at what they were dealing with, fury building as he took in the damage that had been done to the other man.

His breath caught in his throat, a half-formed curse dying before it could escape.

Jack’s chest was rising and falling raggedly, cold and shock, gripping him tightly. That wasn’t what caught his attention. Nor was it the damage, cuts and bruises of various ages against skin pulled too tight on the diminished frame.

It was the brand.

****

Gabriel ignored the guard outside the hospital room but found himself hesitating with his hand on the handle. Not going in was no more an option than giving up searching for Jack had been, but it was almost as daunting.

Because if Gabriel and the Strike Team were changed by the months that he had been missing, Jack was broken. He hadn’t spoken since he’d woken. And while it was clear that he recognised them, there was a wariness in the shadowed eyes that made Gabriel’s heart ache.

As much as he tried to tell himself that it was enough that Jack was still alive. It wasn’t. Jack was alive, and they had him back, but over the last few days, he had felt just as far as ever. If not further, because they didn’t know how to reach him.

It was a shock to realise just how naïve they had been. They’d been so busy focusing on finding him and denying the idea that he was dead or that he had fled, that they hadn’t allowed themselves to think about what was being done to him.

Or, rather they had shied away from it when the topic had come up because it was something else that they hadn’t been able to stop. Another failure.

A failure that was written not only in the shadowed eyes, and wary watchfulness, but across Jack’s body.

Jack, who by all accounts should have been dead.

SEP was the reason that Jack was still alive. His body enduring what would have killed most people, a dozen times over if the doctors’ estimates were to be believed. Gabriel knew that he should be grateful that what they had endured, had brought Jack back to him. But he couldn’t ignore the other truth in those words – that SEP had not only kept Jack alive. It had also allowed his captors to push him to the limits, testing his enhancements, hurting him over and over, until the injuries he’d had when Gabriel and Ana had found him had only just started to heal.

Was that what this was about? Finding their limits? Gabriel knew that was a theory being bandied about, but he had already dismissed it. There were few enough SEP graduates left alive for it to be worth the trouble unless they had been trying to replicate the effects, and even then, why take Jack and not him? Or both of them?

More concerning was the questions about what information Jack had been privy to before he was taken, and what he might have divulged. They didn’t care that they’d had anti-interrogation training. Or that the Strike Team had been working on the bare minimum of intelligence for months – there was no grand strategy. It was their unpredictability that made them so effective, so even if Jack had broken and told them what he knew of their immediate plans, that information would have been out of date as soon as it was shared.

Then there was the fact that they were already being watched.

After Gabriel had shared his suspicions as they waited for news on Jack. Liao had found the traces of hacking in their equipment and had taken it as a personal affront and was spending every minute not being questioned, or visiting Jack, to try and follow the trail.

Unfortunately, their arguments were falling on deaf ears at the moment, especially as they were still awaiting a hearing over their last mission. Right now, the only thing keeping Jack out of the cross-hairs was the fact that he was rarely awake for more than a few minutes at a time, and the doctors had refused to allow him to be questioned. It was a flimsy defence, and one that Gabriel knew was weakening by the minute.

It was also something that Gabriel wasn’t going to be able to protect him from unless they whisked him away from here, and while he would have done that in a heartbeat – and the others would probably be right there to help him – he doubted that Jack would have agreed. It would ruin more than their careers, and he couldn’t make that decision for the other man.

Which meant that it was a waiting game now, and he had never been good at those.

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door, and slipped into the room, closing the door firmly in the guard’s face. Supposedly they had been posted for Jack’s protection, but Gabriel had his doubts, and he made a note to get Liao to look at their orders. He wouldn’t make that choice for Jack unless he had to, but he would make it without hesitation if it was the only way to keep him safe.

A muffled growl beyond the door made him smirk, and then he turned around and froze mid-step.

Jack was awake.

Gabriel stopped, holding out his arms to show that he wasn’t a threat as the wary eyes locked on to him. Waiting. As he did, he let his gaze rove over the other man, lingering on the bandages hiding the worst of the damage, and on the bruises that were finally starting to change colour. He also had more colour in his face now, but he still looked worn and stretched thin, as though the slightest breeze would shatter him.

It was terrifying to see because Jack was the last person that Gabriel could imagine being this fragile. This broken. And he didn’t know how to help, let alone fix it.

“Jack…” He didn’t even know what to say to him. What could he say? Sorry? Sorry that we didn’t find you sooner? Sorry that we couldn’t protect you? Sorry that it wasn’t over yet?

Jack had tensed at his voice, but there was something new in his eyes. And slowly he lifted a trembling hand and pressed it to the bandages covering his chest, and Gabriel’s throat tightened at the sight, hand half-raised to stop him.

Of all the injuries that Jack bore, that was the worst, leaving him feeling sick to the stomach at the memory of the raw, oozing mark.

Ana was currently researching the mark – one that they had encountered in the field over the last few months, but not often enough to discern a pattern yet. It was less evident in the brand, as though they’d wanted to leave them guessing – a rudimentary ‘T’ in front of what appeared to be a shield (which had left Reinhardt looking more than a little sick to the stomach)

That uncertainty and unfamiliarity would change. Touching Jack had just shifted the Strike Team’s focus – not that they’d told the brass that, or even said as much to one another.

It was there in the way Liao and Ana were going about their research with a single-minded focus that almost put their search for Jack to shame, and in the way, Torbjörn was neck-deep in plans to maximise their armoury, while Reinhardt had rarely ventured far from the hospital, determined that anyone trying to get to Jack would have to go through him.

It didn’t help that it was also the injury resisting healing the most, and the doctors’ had no explanation for it, and he knew that it had to be burning under the pressure that Jack was putting on it, but Jack’s expression was terrifyingly blank apart from his eyes.

When Jack finally spoke a moment later, it was the voice of a stranger.

“What happened to me…?”


	2. Chapter 2

That question was in the back of Gabriel’s mind as he waited outside the room where Jack was finally facing the last in a series of private hearings about what had happened to him. The problem being that they were not as close to answering that question as he would like.

Jack’s memory wasn’t completely missing. He remembered being taken – and he had never looked so small, and human, as he when, he had confirmed that it hadn’t been Omnics although they had been involved. It was human hands that had taken him. Human hands that inflicted the damage that was still visible in the new scars, and the way he held himself rigid around people. Gabriel had been ordered out of the hospital following his explosion at that confirmation, although it had been Jack’s increased wariness around him that had made him rein in his temper.

After that moment that Jack’s memory was patchy at best. The doctors cited trauma and shock. The brass had suggested that he was trying to cover his ass.

It was Gabriel and to a lesser extent the rest of the Strike Team who felt there was something more. Not that Jack was outright lying to him, as he had always been terrible at that, but as though the shadowed look in his eyes threatened something more. It was a suspicion that had only grown because Jack was different.

They could understand his wariness, the way he flinched at sudden movements and touches. The desperation as he asked what had happened to him, especially after he had finally been allowed to see the damage that had been done to him. The moments when he would lash out after waking from a nightmare or being caught off guard.

It was the other moments that had them worried.

The times when his expression would darken when he thought no one was looking, a snarl on his lips – a promise of pain in his gaze. The way he had barely reacted to the news that the Strike Team were facing disciplinary action for their actions. The complete, and utter lack of concern at the news that he was going to face a series of hearings as soon as the doctors gave him the all-clear… no, not a lack of concern. A certainty. As though he had nothing left to fear.

A flurry of activity drew him out of his thoughts, and he looked up just in time to see the door swing open as Jack stepped out into the corridor. The other man was still moving slowly, the wounds might be healed, but the other damage lingered, and Gabriel’s eyes narrowed as he watched a hand reach up to press against his chest. The brand was still healing, and it would scar deeply. A permanent reminder of what had happened. Gabriel loathed and feared it, because Ana’s research was turning up worrying answers that had him on edge, constantly waiting for something else to happen. But Jack…Jack almost seemed to take comfort from it, straightening as he touched it.

Frowning, Gabriel pushed himself away from the wall and stepping forward to meet him, his attention shifting to the strange expression on Jack’s face. Frustration and a smugness that Gabriel had never seen from the other man before, although it immediately disappeared behind a weary smile when he realised Gabriel was there.

“Well?” Gabriel fell into step beside him, a half-step between them as Jack tensed for a moment. The fact that the hearings were private had worried him because if they’d chosen to punish Jack it could’ve happened before, he was even aware of it, making the dozen or so contingency plans he’d come up with moot.

“I am in the clear, although they will ‘be watching my conduct closely.” For a moment, he almost sounded like himself. It was the same tone that Jack had used when he’d realised that there was next to no privacy during SEP, and Gabriel was relaxing, a heady rush of relief gripping him when Jack continued. “Although it’s not like they really had a choice.”

There it was again. The voice of a stranger. Gabriel had scolded him in the past for wearing his heart on his sleeve, worried about what the world would do to him. Now, he would give anything to know what Jack was feeling, let alone what he was thinking because when he looked at him at that moment, it was like looking at a blank slate.

“What do you mean?”

“They need us Gabriel,” Jack said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. And maybe it was, but Gabriel was caught by the snarl that had appeared for a second. “All this,” Jack’s hand finally left his chest, so that he could gesture around them. “Is to make themselves feel better about the fact that they had no power to end this crisis.”

It was hard. It was cynical. It sounded like Gabriel. And Gabriel wished that he could just believe that it was a side-effect of Jack being exposed to the worst the world and the war had to offer him, but there was something in his expression, and the gaze that met his all too briefly that made it uneasy.

As though Jack almost didn’t want the crisis, and the conflict to end.

“Jack…” It disappeared the moment he spoke, Jack’s face settling back into the neutral blankness that was almost as unnerving. “Let’s go, the other’s will be waiting to hear how it went…” Gabriel said in a rush, and Jack smiled. Empty and hollow. Humouring him.

“Then let’s not keep them waiting.”

**

Gabriel had retreated to the otherwise empty terrace of the restaurant that the others had dragged them to after hearing Jack’s news. It should have been a celebration. It should have felt like coming home, with all of them sat around a table again.

It wasn’t.

Because there was a stranger in their midst. Oh, Jack had laughed and smiled – a little strained and forced, hesitating at times – which he knew Reinhardt and the others had noticed, some of them dismissing it as a lingering effect of what had happened. He had also been the one to broach the topic of what they were going to do next – apparently, he had taken it as a given that they would receive similar verdicts. But to Gabriel, it had felt as though he was moving through the steps of a choreographed dance, and they were still struggling to catch up to the tune that he was dancing to.

It made him uneasy, and he’d all but fled during a lull in the conversation. Escaping from Jack, and the wolf in sheep’s clothing that now wore his smile. Part of him hoped desperately that it was just Jack trying to find a way back to them, and that one day he would look into those blue eyes and see the man that had been at his side since SEP.

Another part wondered if that Jack was as good as dead.

“What are you doing out here?” He’d been hoping that it was Jack who would chase him, desperate for something to cling to, and he couldn’t mask his disappointment as he looked up to find Ana leaning against the railing beside him. “I thought you would be in there making plans with Jack.”

“We don’t know what they’re going to decide about the rest of us yet.” It was an empty excuse, as Gabriel knew that Jack was right. They were the only ones that could fight this war and succeed. Any repercussions for what they had done would come later, and if they thought he cared about the future of his career now, they were barking up the wrong tree.

“That’s not why you’re out here, looking as though you’ve just fled from a ghost.”

“Jack…” Gabriel hesitated for a moment. Jack needed the Strike Team, regardless of what he had become, he needed them if he was going to come back to them. Could Gabriel risk taking that away with his suspicions? Especially, doubts that he could admit to himself were based on his own feelings as much as evidence. Ana was waiting though, one eyebrow lifted, demanding answers and more than capable of remaining there for the rest of the night. “He’s changed…”

“We all have.”

“Not like that…” Gabriel trailed off because that wasn’t strictly true. He didn’t notice it as much at the moment, but then they weren’t in the field, but the darkness they had gained in those long months of searching and fighting against the brass and public expectations as much as they were fighting the Omnics was still there. Was it just more evident in Jack because of that time apart? He had watched the others change and changed alongside them. But Jack…Jack had changed on his own, and they still had no idea just what he had endured.

“He’s different,” Ana allowed, patting him on the shoulder. “But, deep down I believe he’s still the Jack we knew. He was the one to send me out here to ‘talk some sense into you’.” There was fondness in her voice, and it sounded so much like Jack that it was almost painful. And he wanted to believe her, to believe in that concern.

“Ana…”

“Give him time Gabriel,” Ana cut across him. “Besides, we have more urgent things to worry about.” He recognised that tone, the steel that coloured her voice whenever she talked about what had happened to Jack, and he turned to look at her.

“What have you found?”

****

Gabriel hadn’t wanted to bring Jack with them on this mission. Not because he wasn’t capable – Jack had flung himself into his recovery after Ana had shared the lead they’d found, until there was no reason for him to be excluded.

No reason apart from one.

A reason that he had never thought would apply to Jack Morrison.

He didn’t trust Jack.

It hurt to admit, even in the safety of his own mind. And he certainly hadn’t shared that thought with anyone, not even Ana after their conversation on the terrace. It had nothing to do with the whispers about betrayal that hadn’t faded away as much as he’d hoped with Jack, and later their acquittals. It also wasn’t just the feeling that Jack had changed.

Or, not entirely.

He missed the easiness between them. The way that before all of this, he had always known what Jack was going to do, able to take a risk and know that the other man would have his back. Now, even in practice, there was a hesitation, and he wasn’t sure which of them it was coming from. Time, he knew would fix that. Or so he hoped.

No, it was the darkness. The snarls that still flickered into appearance when Jack thought no one was looking. It was the way Jack made sacrifice moves in the training that he would never have considered before, leaving Liao to take a hit, while he achieved their goal. Or, hesitating when someone shouted at him to cover someone else, eyes locked on the target.

Jack had driven him up the wall for years with his willingness to sacrifice himself for anyone and everything, the lengths that he would go to achieve their mission and not suffer a single loss leaving Gabriel with more than one grey hair. Yet, as much as he had feared what it might one day cost Jack, and as often as he scolded the other man for it.

He missed it now.

He could accept the wariness or the increased darkness. Jack had been through hell and didn’t even know exactly what had happened to him, something that Gabriel was sure was contributing to Jack’s restless nights and the exhaustion that never seemed far away. But the loss of something so integral to who Jack Morrison was terrified him.

Which was why his eyes were locked on Jack as they closed in on the building that Liao and Ana’s efforts had flagged up. It didn’t look like much. Just one of the numerous warehouses lying abandoned on the outskirts of a town abandoned since the first days of the Crisis. Which was why the sight of lights in the upper windows, and steam rising from a vent on the far side had Gabriel gripping his weapon a little tighter.

“Are you ready for this?” Gabriel asked as they paused, letting the others move into position. Hoping that he sounded concerned more than suspicious, and he was worried – not just because of Jack’s behaviour – but because of what they might find. It had been Ana who had pointed out that this could have been one of the places that Jack had been held.

He could see that reflected for a moment in Jack’s expression. A hesitation, tongue flicking across his lips as he glanced at the warehouse. Then the shutters came down, and it was the stranger in Jack’s body that replied. “It’s just another mission.”

He couldn’t call it off at this point. Not least because the Strike Team needed this. They had Jack back – although he was questioning the truth of that – but they didn’t have any answers. They hadn’t been able to protect Jack, so now they wanted to avenge what had been done to him. Gabriel needed it just as much, but when he glanced at Jack, he couldn’t help but feel as though they were teetering on the brink of another loss.

“Go.” It sounded hollow in his own ears, but there was no time to dwell on it because Jack was already moving and he knew the others would be too, and as he fell into step behind Jack, he prayed that he hadn’t made a mistake.

*

At the very least they were in the right place.

It had been Liao who had tracked the shipments of Omnic parts to the frontline from this region, who had noticed the symbol etched into the side of the crates. A logo they recognised all too well – as it’s twin had been crudely branded onto Jack’s chest.

Gabriel was growling under his breath as he stared at the symbol on the stack of crates he and Jack were currently crouched behind. Pre-warning hadn’t prepared him, and it was a relief to see that Jack was rigid beside him, eyes focused on the symbol. Less reassuring was the hand that Jack had pressed to his chest, and he fought the urge to reach out.

“Ana?” He whispered instead.

“There are at least five people in the office space.” Ana paused as Liao muttered something to her, the static on the line blurring the words. “And we’re picking up on a growing Omnic signal from the opposite end to your current location.”

There it was, the confirmation they’d all been expecting but not wanting to hear. Humans aiding Omnics wasn’t a new phenomenon, although it was one that still left a bitter taste in Gabriel’s mouth – he had seen what that aid had permitted to happen. They all had. This was worse, not least because Jack’s expression had darkened – and Gabriel only had one word for the emotion in his eyes.

Hatred.

Gabriel couldn’t blame him. The likelihood that these people were involved in what had been done to him was growing by the second, and they were working with the Omnics to continue the crisis which had already inflicted far too many scars on all of them.

He reached out now. Trying to draw reassurance from the fact that Jack didn’t pull away, although nor did he lean into it as he would once have. “We need at least one of them alive,” Gabriel opened the line to the entire team, but his eyes were on Jack as he spoke. They’d discussed this all before, but they were different now – the darkness ate at them, and this mission was personal.

He saw the dissent before Jack nodded, echoed by the rest of the team.

And his doubt grew.

*

Which was why things went downhill, he wasn’t surprised that it was because of Jack. They had been closing in on the Omnic signals – moving to flank them. The sheer number of crates making Gabriel wonder just what they had found, and he’d turned to say as much to Jack when he’d realised that the other man was no longer there.

For a moment, fear gripped him, remembering the last time Jack had disappeared. This time it didn’t take long to find Jack, as gunfire echoed through the warehouse, followed by the familiar sounds of Omnics coming to life.

“Jack!” He was moving without thought, half aware of bellowing an order into the communicator as he rushed towards the sound.

He caught a fleeting glimpse of Jack dropping back to shelter behind crates, as bullets raked the ground in front of him, and he was lifting his gun to cover him when the stack beside him erupted outwards, and he instinctively fell back, flinging up a hand to protect his eyes from the splinters. Taking a blow to the side that had him reeling, feeling bone break under the impact, driving the breath out of him. Years of fighting, brought his gun up, firing even as he staggered back. His first shot taking the Omnic through it’s left optic, the second through its jaw. Still, it came towards him, bringing its guns to bear on him, just as a giant hammer took its head clean off its shoulders

Then Reinhardt was rushing past him, charging to shield Jack who was being pressed back by two other Omnics, as Ana appeared from the shadows beside him. A biotic grenade removing the worst of the pounding pain from his side. “What happened to stealth?”

“Jack happened…” The rest of his answer was lost as the warehouse wall exploded, and remembering the last time that had happened, Gabriel swung Ana behind him, turning to face the threat. There was no flames, or falling debris to worry about this time, Reinhardt’s shield blocking the worst of it, as Jack fired from behind him. Which left his attention riveted, not on the smaller Omnics now crowding through the new opening, but the larger figure following in their wake.

For a moment, he thought that maybe he had been wrong because the Strike Team, including Jack, reacted as one. Reinhardt moving to cover them, as Torbjörn appeared behind them, a turret already in place and Jack shifting with them, attention on the new threat. Gabriel mirroring him, shielding Ana until she could melt away to find a better vantage spot. There was no sign of Liao, and Gabriel trusted that was part of the original plan.

The number of Omnics had Gabriel’s mind racing. What were they protecting here? What was so important about this organisation? Or were they still after Jack?

A shout refocused his attention on the fight, watching as Jack pressed a hand to a now bloody shoulder, before shaking it off. That was too close, and Gabriel launched himself forward – advancing even as Reinhardt forced Jack back. Suspicions and doubts didn’t matter. The questions didn’t matter. If they were after Jack again, then they were in for an unpleasant surprise.

At close range he was devastating, and with the others – including Jack – providing covering fire, he decimated the first wave of smaller Omnics, those that made it past walking into a deadly wave of gunfire, or a lethal swing of Reinhardt’s hammer. Unfortunately, that meant his attention wavered from the larger one, at least until he heard Ana shouting a warning before her voice rose in pain.

Gabriel twisted towards the sound, taking a shot across his upper arm. The pain lost in the alarm, as he realised that Ana was caught in the Omnic’s hand and being lifted towards its chest – a human shield. It was a tactic that had been devastatingly effective against them in the early days, and this was Ana. His aim was blocked, and he wouldn’t risk hitting her – but Jack had a clear angle, and as he twisted around, firing at the Omnics still pressing in on them, he shouted.

“JACK!” 

In the past, Jack would have fired immediately. This time there was a delay, a hesitation. As though Jack had been debating whether to intervene, and Gabriel felt those doubts surge back up, and he was turning back, taking a glancing blow to his shoulder that made him stagger when Jack moved.

Any fears Gabriel might have had about Jack not being ready to be back in the field disappeared at that moment, because even injured Jack was poetry in motion. Launching himself up a teetering pile of crates, unfazed as they began to collapse beneath him, gunfire rending the wood before Reinhardt moved to cover him again. As soon as he was above the Omnic he leapt into mid-air down, a helix rocket fired at point-blank range, reducing the Omnic’s head to molten metal, and sparking wires, Ana falling free as the hand gripping her opened reflexively.

Jack rolled clear of the falling Omnic and didn’t even spare Ana a second glance as he moved to join Gabriel in cutting through the waves of smaller Omnics, leaving Torbjörn to check on Ana. Gabriel noted this, adding it to his concerns, but then Jack was at his side, and for a split second it felt as easy as breathing to fall in step with him, back to back as they pushed the fight away from the others.

It came as a surprise when he turned to fire again and found no further target, the furthest Omnics beating a retreat back out into the night. With half an eye on them – it wouldn’t be the first time a retreat had been a ruse, he turned to check on the rest of the team just as Jack lunged past him, lips drawn back in a snarl, blood, dirt and oil smeared across his face.

“No!” Gabriel caught him and had to dodge the blow that followed. Jack’s eyes wild, murder in his expression, before he seemed to catch up with what he was doing. Something shifted in his expression, and it wasn’t an apology, but Gabriel let it slide as Jack stilled, although his attention had shifted back to the escaping Omnics. “Ana, are you all right?” He asked attention split between the Omnics and Jack as Torbjörn helped Ana limp across.

“I’ll live.” Ana was looking at Jack too when he glanced at her, and for the first time, he saw an echo of his own doubts in her expression before she forced a smile. “Thanks to Jack.” Nothing. No flicker of relief. No double-checking that she was okay. She might as well not have spoken for all the attention Jack spared her, and Gabriel knew there was going to be an awkward conversation in their future as she looked at him.

“… use a hand… here.” Liao’s voice crackled over the communicator, breaking the quiet that had fallen.

That caught Jack’s attention, and this time Gabriel couldn’t catch him before he turned and bolted towards their original goal. Cursing he gave chase, trusting the others to follow… in a way that he didn’t trust the broad back in front of him.

Jack had a head start, and that only grew as he took the stairs up to the upper floor two at a time, his injury not slowing him in the slightest.

Gabriel had just reached the top two stairs, taking in the state of the door from where Liao had obviously blasted their way inside when there were two sharp gunshots interjected by Liao shouting. “What are you doing?” And he sped up, bursting inside just to see Jack lowering his gun, while a body hit the ground with a dull thud.


End file.
